Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of seventy-four. Sunrise is 7 AM and sunset 6:24 PM, for 11h 24m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred thirty-second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1765, the Stamp Act Congress (First Congress of the American Colonies) convenes in New York, with elected representatives from nine colonies meeting to form a common opposition to the Stamp Act. On this day in 1774, Wisconsin becomes part of Quebec: “On this date Britain passed the Quebec Act, making Wisconsin part of the province of Quebec. Enacted by George III, the act restored the French form of civil law to the region. The Thirteen Colonies considered the Quebec Act as one of the “Intolerable Acts,” as it nullified Western claims of the coast colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River on the south and to the Mississippi River on the west. [Source: Avalon Project at the Yale Law School].”
Recommended for reading in full —
Phillip Bump writes FEMA buried updates on Puerto Rico. Here they are:
….We’ve taken that data for the past week or so and created a tool that will show you not only the status of each of the metrics tracked by Status.pr but also how those numbers have improved (or haven’t) over time. It updates every hour, showing the most recent numbers for any given day.Experts predict that it will take months to repair the electrical grid enough that most residents of the island have power. For months, then, the numbers above will be below 100 percent, a constant reminder of how much work the administration still has to do before Puerto Rican society has been restored to where it was before Hurricane Maria hit.
FEMA would rather not broadcast that slow progress. So we will.
(FEMA denies intentional removal to conceal bad news that contradicts Trump’s assertions, but offers no explanation why data relevant to FEMA’s role was not included on its 10.6.17 website update.)
David A Graham asks Why Did FEMA Remove Stats About Puerto Rico’s Recovery? (“As in the case of data about climate change and occupational safety, the Trump administration has quietly pulled down bleak numbers about electricity and drinking water after Hurricane Maria”):
….With the post-Hurricane Maria relief effort in Puerto Rico still a long way from complete, there are sobering statistics about conditions on the island. Less than 11 percent of people have electricity. Just 42 percent have working phones. Barely half have access to drinking water. And until this week, anyone visiting FEMA’s page for the Maria recovery effort could have found that information. But then, as The Washington Post first noticed, they’re gone now. FEMA still has some information there, including road status, but the bleakest numbers are gone.
FEMA’s answer is that the numbers are all available on an official Puerto Rican page, which is true. “Our mission is to support the governor and his response priorities through the unified command structure to help Puerto Ricans recover and return to routines. Information on the stats you are specifically looking for are readily available,” a spokesman told the Post. That’s all fair enough, but it doesn’t explain why FEMA was posting those numbers, or why it stopped now.
The deletion of the statistics both fits with the Trump administration’s pattern of treating Maria largely as a matter of so-called optics, the concern with how things look rather than how they are, and with its past tendency to remove public posting of data that cuts against its message in other realms. As a federal project, Maria poses a particularly difficult task: The scale of the destruction on Puerto Rico is bad, even for a major hurricane, and the territory’s remoteness makes it harder to move resources to than other American land. Brock Long, the head of FEMA, has described it as the biggest logistical challenge in American disaster history, and experts broadly agree. As both professional disaster managers and journalists like me have pointed out, while any delay is frustrating to those enduring it, the difficulties are real….
Ivan Nechepuuenko reports Putin Says Russia Has ‘Many Friends’ in U.S. Who Can Mend Relations:
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Wednesday that relations with America had “become hostage to the internal political situation in the U.S.,” but that his country had many friends in the United States who can help improve relations between the two nations when the political tensions in America settle down.
“Certain forces use the Russian-American ties to solve internal political problems in the U.S.,” Mr. Putin said at a high-profile energy development forum in Moscow. “We are patiently waiting until this process in the internal political life in America will end.”
Ties between Moscow and Washington have ebbed and flowed since President Trump took office, despite Russian lawmakers’ Champagne toast after election night in hopes that Mr. Trump would make significant moves in Russia’s favor….
(Those who are Putin’s friends in America are either fellow travelers or, worse, fifth columnists actively supporting his regime. Putin, himself, is responsible for the legitimate grievances against him: annexing part of Ukraine, fomenting an ongong war in eastern Ukraine thereafter, interfering in the American democratic process, ceaseless hacking against the United States military and domestic companies & citizens, and human rights violations at home, including the frequent jailing, torture, and murder of dissidents in Russia & elsewhere in Europe. He is a liar, dictator, and murderer.)
Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman and Adam Entous report Trump’s company had more contact with Russia during campaign, according to documents turned over to investigators:
….Details of the communications were turned over by the Trump Organization in August to the White House, defense lawyers and government investigators and described to The Washington Post.
Though there is no evidence that these Russia-related entreaties resulted in further action, the email communications about them show that Trump’s inner circle continued receiving requests from Russians deep into the presidential campaign.
After WikiLeaks began to publish emails from the Democratic National Committee that were widely believed to have been hacked at the direction of Moscow, Trump said on several occasions that he had no financial ties to Russia. In July 2016, he tweeted, “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia.”
But the new disclosures add to an emerging picture in which Trump’s business and campaign were repeatedly contacted by Russians with interests in business and politics. Trump’s son, his son-in-law, his campaign chairman, low-level foreign policy advisers and, now, Cohen, one of his closest business confidants, all fielded such inquiries in the weeks before or after Trump accepted the nomination.
The documents also underscore the Trump company’s long-standing interest in doing business in Moscow….
Simon Whistler explains Who Invented the Chicken Nugget: